The invention relates to an apparatus for measuring biological signals that detect an abnormality by measuring a whole function and a regional function of an organ of the body.
When one detects the presence of a regional abnormality of such organs of the body as the heart and the lung, a conventional method employs an apparatus for measuring biological signals and measures a parameter representing the whole function of an organ of the body to be measured so that the presence of an abnormality can be judged from a subtle change of the parameter brought about by a regional abnormality, or detects an abnormal region by measuring a parameter representing a regional function of an organ of the body for all the required regions of the organ of the body.
Further, other conventional methods employ various special apparatuses for measuring biological signals to give a subject a detailed examination from the outset.
However, for detecting such subtle change of the parameter brought about by a regional abnormality by measuring the parameter representing the whole function of the organ of the body to be measured, highly sophisticated expertise or a great amount of experience is required. When part of the organ becomes abnormal, the other part of the organ tends to compensate for the function of such abnormal part of the organ, therefore no change of the parameter representing the whole function takes place unless such abnormality is significantly aggravated. As a result, the detection of an abnormality has been delayed in some examinations using the conventional methods.
Further, when measuring the parameter representing the regional function of the organ of the body, it is necessary to take samples of the same parameter from a great number of all other regions of the organ of the body to be measured. As a result, the examiner may overlook some detected regions, which in turn requires that the regions be reexamined, thus causing emotional and physical distress to the subject. Still further, this type of examination requires a large and expensive measuring apparatus, which in turn entails much time for preparations for measurements and hence makes this type of examination unsuitable as a simple examination for abnormality detection.
Moreover, when making a detailed examination from the outset, the subject is forced to endure emotional and physical strain.